The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1887-04-27
REGULATING THE RAILROADS

Congressman Payson is alleged to
have said that the railroads appear to have
captured the Interstate Commission, the same
as they capture everything
L. M. Herrick, President of the
Pacific Pine Lumber Company, and L. c.
Williams, President of the Redwood Manu-
featuring Association of San Francisco, have
telegraphed the Interstate Commerce Commits
sioners as follows: Our two corporations
employing 5000 TO 1000 men, and about
$50, COG, 900 capital, have addressed you by
mail stating that our Eastern business has
been entirely destroyed by the operation of
the law, and asking your interposition in our
behalf. Meanwhile will YOU allow tho roads
over which we have been operating to give
old rates, and so revive our business with the
East, provided the rate is open to all?
A. Lusk g. Co., of San Francisco,
have telegraphod: "1he fruit interests of this
State, which are of great and growing i'm
portance, are seriously jeopardized by the
workings of the interstate commerce bill. In
asmuch as this interest can not avail itself of
water competition, we respectfully ask that
section be suspended, that these interests be
not entirely paralyzed and great loss ensue
The manager of Chicago manufac-
turing house, in a letter to the Interstate Com
mission, complains that he is now compelled
to pay his fare, whereas formerly he rode
upon pass. He asks that section 22 be sus-
pended for the Chicago & Northwestern Road
Mr.. Taft presented communication
to the Interstate Commission, from Sutton &
Co.'S dispatch line, setting forth that the ac-
ton of the transcontinental roads toward the
shipping interest via Cape Horn has been of
the most violent nature. They had exerted
every effort TO annhilate the shipping in
terest of the country. They had taken the
long-haul traffic at loss, which they
must make up from charges on the short-haul
traffic Complaints against unjust discrimina-
ton and excessive rates were received from
several dairymen of Orange County, New
York, and milling firms of Atchison, Kan.
j. Searles, Jr., representing the Eastern
sugar refners, entered a protest against grant
ing the petition of the San Francisco re4iners.
He erected the history Of the Hawaiian sugar
trade, and showed how, by a combination with
the railroads, San Francisco refiners could lay
this foreign commodity down in New York as
prices their Eastern competitors could not
meet Ralph w. Thatcher, miller of Albany,
n. Y, told the Commission he had a contract
for certain favorable terms of Transportation,
under which he had built an elevator The
Delaware and Hudson Canal Company refused
TO carry out the contract since the interstate
law went into effect, and his business was
II. Ill L.,
the company to fulfill its contract A suffer
err from Mankato, Mimi, writes that for the
last five years the people of that vicinity have
been paying their fares TO the conductors,
thereby making a goodly saving. Suddenly
the conductors have experienced change of
heart, and are charging schedule rates, evil
IDENTITY fearing the effect of the new law. He
asks the aid of the commission for a return to
the old system. Justice, Bateman & Co.,
letter protest against suspending Sec
ton four as regards transcontinental
lines. They say the protests against
the section come from parties who have been
enjoying great benefits from cut rates, and
instance the case of wool. Last year San
Francisco merchants had rate of 80 cents
per 100 pounds, while parties several hundred
miles farther east had to pay So to $3.50
There is wool, they say, now in Philadelphia,
grown in Montana, which the railroads forced
to be sent thence via San Francisco, making
haul of 1900 miles, while if shipped direct
it would have travelled only 1900 miles The
object of the discrimination was to give the
San Francisco merchants an opportunity to
exact toll before it reached its natural destina-